


Hiking

by Pagedancer87



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 23:31:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pagedancer87/pseuds/Pagedancer87
Summary: Haven, noun: 1) A place of protection. 2) A sanctuary. 3) A place where you feel safest, most at peace.





	Hiking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [duckpotatodandelion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckpotatodandelion/gifts).

> A story for @duckpotatodandelion. Thank you for helping me edit this, even though it was your birthday prompt. 
> 
> Warning: I have no idea what I’m doing.

(%)(%)(%)

Haven, noun: 1) A place of protection. 2) A sanctuary. 3) A place where you feel safest, most at peace.

For Katniss, it was a place a good hike up from her house. Her father first brought her there when she was a child to help find herbs her mother needed. At six years old, the trip was filled with menacing shadows, foreign noises and a seemingly endless wall of giant trees.

Terrified she’d get lost if she fell behind, she forced herself to keep up with her father’s long strides. 

“Where are we going?” She asked.

“The meadow.” He answered.

On the way he told her about the different animals that roamed the woods, and which animals made the sounds they were hearing. He pointed out the different trees and what might grow around them. He helped her step over fallen trees to cross riverbeds, and held her hand when they came across uneven terrain lined with large blocks of rock. Soon, they’d get past the tree line that opened to a field that was just lush green hills and flowers as far as the eyes could see. Atop the hill was one lone willow tree.  
It was like a different world. The sun was high, the sky was clear, and everything grew wild and free. It was a place that felt out of reach of all things scary and bad. She stopped going soon after her father died, but the thought of it still brought her comfort.

When she finally returned to District 12 after the Games and the fighting, she feared that not even her childhood haven would have been spared from the destruction Snow had wrought. To her surprise, rather than scorched earth and blackened trees, it remained untouched. It was just as wild and unruly as it had always been. With everything she had gone through, and all that she lost, that this one place was unchanged…She crumbled. Beneath the willow tree she opened herself up to all that she had been numbed to. She screamed and wept all her pain, her anger, her grief. The sun had long since set when she shakily made her way back.

Then Peeta came home. 

He still looked ragged, scarred and wounded like her, but nowhere near as hallow as when they first got him back from the Capital. For how long they’d been apart, it surprised her how fiercely she never wanted him out of her sight. 

In the coming weeks, more and more people returned to 12. Some because they had nowhere else to go, and others because it was all they knew. Familiar and unfamiliar faces came to help rebuild. There were days when she pitched in, others when she didn’t leave the house. Though her breakdown in the meadow had helped, she still struggled. When the walls felt too constricting, or nightmares made it hard to breathe, she ran out into the forest.

“He worries about you,” Haymitch tells her one day, “When you leave for your hikes.”

“There’s nothing out there that can hurt me.” She almost shrugged off her old mentor’s concern, except she saw the look on Peeta’s face when he watched her walk out the door. He didn’t look worried, he looked afraid. 

“My nightmares are all about losing you.” He once told her. He wasn’t just afraid that something would happen to her in the forest. He was afraid that she’d never come back. So one morning, she waited for him outside his house. 

“Going somewhere, Katniss?” He asked, noticing her knapsack. She knew he was trying to sound casual, but the look in his eyes gave him away.

“Will you go somewhere with me, Peeta? I want to show you something.” 

“Where?”

“You’ll see. Not far. We’ll be back by dinner.”

They went slow, not just because of Peeta’s leg, but so he could take in every bit of her forest. 

Like a curious child, he stopped to touch this or have a closer look at that. She’d tell him the names of the plants she knew and their uses. Watching him learn each new thing as she did, warmed her heart. When they got to the meadow wide blue eyes took in the petal covered field.

“Wow,” He said in awe. “Has this been here this whole time?”

She smiled and took his hand, leading him up the grassy hill to the willow tree. “My father first brought me here when I was little."

She never would have thought that the path she knew so well, one as familiar as the back of her hand, would ever look any different to her, but sharing it with Peeta surprised her. It felt right having him there with her, like the pieces that made this place feel safe were complete at last.

“And this is where you go when you leave every day?”

She shrugged. “Yes.” She sat down under the tree and pulled him down next to her. “The walk calms me down. This place sort of…centers me.” She started hunting again, and picking herbs and roots that someone in the village would trade for something, but it was the hiking that quieted her mind and slowed her racing heart. 

He went quiet, taking in the peace and tranquility of it all. “I can see why.”

They leaned back against the tree, fingers intertwined. They talked. 

All the things she was afraid to ask, all the things she never allowed herself to say but wished she had, they all came out.

“I’ll always come back to you. You know that, don’t you?” She scooted closer to lay her head on his shoulder.

“You love me. Real or not real?” He asked.

She turned to him and looked into his eyes. “Real. Always.”


End file.
